Page 22 of Bought By the Masked BRATVA
“That didn’t take long.”
A weight I thought I could bear lifts from me, and for the first time in days I feel like I can breathe.
“What else are you going to do with the information I gave you?” I ask, though once the words leave my mouth, I don’t know why. I don’t feel like I care. My old life is truly gone.
“I’ve cannibalised most of it for my own interests,” he says matter of fact. “It will add a small amount to an account I opened up earlier. An account for you, if you want it.”
My head snaps from the television screen to him.
“Why would I want it?” I ask. “That would make me what he accused me of being.”
“No,” he says. “It would make you an income while you figure out what you want to do next. No one will know. But you will know that you took what Hartley did to you and finished him with it. He will do time in a fancy country club prison, but he will never work in politics again. His wife is already separating herself from all this. She has old family money that will see her and the kids safely removed.”
I frown. The picture in my mind isn’t quite fitting with how I feel.
“The business in that dossier, the arms deal he tried to frame you for creating, they were always going to happen. This way Ihold the contracts instead of him. The difference is, I will never sacrifice you to save myself.”
He’s terrifying, but he’s mine. And that’s the difference. He doesn’t destroy for pleasure. He destroys for me.
Something begins to crack inside me.
Maybe I should be terrified of what this means, how much of me he already owns. But the truth is, I’ve never felt safer than when he’s near. I used to think love was compromise, polite smiles and empty promises. Now I know it’s something darker, heavier. Something that looks a lot like this.
Liam
When she meets my eyes again, something in her has shifted. The nervous energy that clung to her before is gone. Her gaze is steady. Certain.
“Okay,” she says, voice quiet but sure.
I hold her loosely around the waist, the sheet she wrapped around herself is warm with her heat. “Okay?”
Her gaze doesn’t waver. “My old life doesn’t exist anymore. The woman I was, Grace Casey, the political consultant who played by the rules even when she had to do shady shit, she’s gone. I don’t want to crawl back to what I had. I think know who I want to be now.”
There’s a beat of silence. The clouds move and sunshine beams through the window, casting her in a golden light.
“Who?” I ask, though I already know.
She draws a slow breath. “Whoever this is.” Her hand gestures between us, fingers trembling just slightly. “Whatever this…weare. I want to choose it. I already have.”
Something in my chest pulls tight, sharp and hot.
“You’re sure?”
She nods once. “I’ve never been surer of anything.”
I study her face. The stubborn lift of her chin, the flicker of fear she refuses to let win, and I know she means it. She’s alreadystepped off the edge; all that’s left is to catch her before the world does.
My hand slides up to cup her jaw, my thumb brushing the corner of her mouth. “Do you understand what it means to be mine, Grace?”
Her pulse beats against my fingers. “Tell me.”
“It means no halfway.” My voice is low, steady. “When I take a woman under my name, she doesn’t look over her shoulder again. I protect her. Provide for her. No one touches her. Not the law. Not the press. Not another man.”
Her breath stutters, but she doesn’t look away.
“But protection has a price,” I continue. “It means honesty. It means obedience when it matters. It means we build something that lasts.” I pause, letting the words sink in. “It means no birth control. Marriage. Children. A family. You become part of my bloodline, and in return, you’ll never have to run again. You’ll have my name, my home, my loyalty, every piece of me. You’ll be safe, always.”
The room is silent except for the low hum of the news caster repeating the news.
